Month: March 2018

Fertility treatment in the UK is more successful and safer than ever before, according to a report from the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority).

IVF is now 85 percent more likely to succeed than when records first began in 1991, said the regulator. Over 20,000 babies were born in 2016 as a result of more than 68,000 IVF treatments, an increase of four percent from 2015. The HFEA’s new report covers fertility treatment trends and success rates for the 2014-2016 period.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Time to think about family planning. You, your body, and … your employer?

Facebook made headlines when it first began comping employees for freezing their eggs, but now more companies are taking an active role in helping their workers plan and research their fertility.

Employers like Google and Apple offer full financial assistance for egg freezing. Spotify funds unlimited in-vitro fertilization. Patagonia offers childcare and family support services, opening the door for companies to take an active role in their employees’ children’s lives – from the (literal) very beginnings all the way through Pre-K and beyond.

The New Jersey Legislature is advancing a statute that would enable individuals to enter into enforceable agreements for surrogate parenthood via gestational carriers. The New Jersey Gestational Carrier Agreement Act (S-482, A-1704) awaits only final legislative approval and the signature of Gov. Phil Murphy to become law.

In gestational surrogacy, a woman agrees to be implanted with a fertilized egg that is not hers, and to carry the fetus to term. The fetus is conceived in vitro, using egg and sperm from donors who are unrelated to the woman. The act requires such agreements to be in writing; additionally, the carrier must be over age 21 and have already borne at least one child of her own; her spouse or partner must consent in writing, and the intended parents must provide financial and medical support to the woman throughout her pregnancy and delivery. All parties must also undergo psychological evaluation and be represented by independent counsel. The woman carrying the fetus must surrender custody of the baby to the intended parents immediately upon birth. The act specifies that during the pregnancy, the intended parents must initiate a proceeding for an order of parentage. After the birth, the state will issue a birth certificate listing only the intended parents as the legal parents. Records relating to the agreement will remain confidential, but the child may petition for access when he or she turns 18.

This image shows the first sign of successful in vitro fertilization. (Oregon Health & Science University)

I got the truth when I was 16: My mother hadn’t gotten pregnant by an ex-boyfriend. I was, rather, the product of a completely intentional transaction. My father was an anonymous sperm donor.

My mom conceived me on her own at a time when it wasn’t in vogue to do so, and she didn’t tell her siblings or parents what she’d done. The revelation hit me deeply. An introverted, introspective teen, I internalized her decision to hide the truth as my own shame — shame I still feel today.

Male infertility is the most common reason couples in the UK have IVF treatment, official UK data has revealed.

The most common reasons for IVF treatment after male infertility (37%) were ovulatory disorder (13%), blocked fallopian tubes (12%) and endometriosis (6%), although in 32% of cases the cause of infertility was unexplained.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s (HFEA) report for 2014-2016 revealed that 40 years after the first child was born following in vitro fertilisation, IVF treatment is at the strongest it has ever been in the UK. The report showed that in 2016, more than 68,000 IVF treatments were performed (an increase of 4% from 2015), with over 20,000 babies born. Current treatments are now 85% more likely to succeed than when records began in 1991, as the average birth rate per embryo transferred for women of all ages is 21%.

Betty Jacobs first heard about the freezer problem on Thursday, March 8, when she scrolled through her Facebook news feed. That day, a local Ohio paper had published an articleabout temperature changes at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, where Jacobs underwent IVF and had her twins in 2016. Because of these temperature changes — which had occurred the previous Saturday — more than 2,000 frozen eggs and embryos were potentially damaged and unviable.

According to the Ministry of Health (MOH), surrogacy refers to the arrangement where “a woman is artificially impregnated, whether for monetary compensation or not, with the intention that the child is to be the social child of some other person or couple”.

Commercial surrogacy often involves a fee paid to the surrogate mother. By hiring a surrogate mother, you are essentially hiring a woman to carry and deliver a child for you.

Dr. Julie Lamb, director of fertility preservation at Pacific NW Fertility in Seattle, has been fielding calls from concerned patients after two unrelated incidents at fertility clinics in San Francisco and Cleveland raised concerns about egg storage.CreditRuth Fremson/The New York Times

The failure of systems used to store frozen eggs and embryos at two fertility clinics has rattled people who count on such clinics to help them realize their hopes of having children. But the breakdowns at clinics in Cleveland and San Francisco, each apparently involving the temperature or level of liquid nitrogen in one storage tank, have damaged at least some eggs and embryos belonging to potentially hundreds of people.

At a time when egg freezing is increasing swiftly — some Silicon Valley companies now tout it as a perk for their employees — the incidents raise questions about what to look for and ask if you are considering taking that step. Here is a basic guide:

This week, cryogenic storage at two fertility clinics malfunctioned, putting their client’s family planning in jeopardy.

ON MARCH 4, an embryologist at Pacific Fertility Center was doing a routine walk-through of the clinic’s collection of waist-high steel tanks, each one filled with thousands of liquid nitrogen-bathed vials of frozen sperm, eggs, and embryos. The San Francisco-based clinic offers cryogenic cold storage and in vitro fertilization services for patients throughout the Bay Area, many of whom work for tech companies with hefty fertility benefits packages—Apple, Google, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn. PFC charges its patients $600 a year for storage alone, which covers the personnel required to maintain the tanks, according to its website.Every day someone has to do a physical inspection of the equipment, and staff are on-call 24/7. But that Sunday, the embryologist discovered that in one tank, Tank No. 4., the liquid nitrogen levels had slipped to dangerously low levels.

With more people facing fertility issues and couples increasingly seeking alternative routes to have children, there is a growing number of UK families created through surrogacy.

In the last three years, the number of children being born through surrogacy has almost tripled according to figures from the Ministry of Justice Family Court.

Surrogacy is no longer a taboo – along with adoption it has become an accepted alternative to traditional child birth. It has even recently featured in the Archers on Radio 4 and has been put into the headlines by Kim Kardashian and Kanye West who have recently used a surrogate to have their baby, Chicago.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee has signed into law Senate Bill 6037, which substantially updates and improves Washington’s version of the Uniform Parentage Act (UPA).

The UPA is the law that addresses how people are legally recognized as parents. This update strengthens protections for LGBTQ parents and non-biological parents, while maintaining the protections for rape survivors created by the 2017 Rape Survivor Safety Act.

Same-sex couples who are considering gay surrogacy to conceive their families should examine the serious risks of unregulated programs overseas, said Bill Houghton, founder of the Sensible Surrogacy Guide.

As same-sex couples increasingly look for options to conceive children, many are choosing programs in countries without basic protections, according to Bill Houghton, founder of the Sensible Surrogacy Guide. Some destinations popular with gay couples have no specific legislation on surrogacy. This opens the door to unregulated programs with serious risks.

On Jan. 25, 2018, the Appellate Division, Third Department, issued a significant decision in Matter of Christopher YY v. Jessica ZZ, 2018 NY Slip Op 00495. Underlying the court’s determination is the conundrum which it describes as follows: “Application of existing case law involving different-gender spouses, addressing whether the presumption [of legitimacy] has been rebutted, to a child born to a same-gender married couple is inherently problematic, as it is not currently scientifically possible for same-gender couples to produce a child that is biologically ‘the product of the marriage’ [citations omitted].”